LOST REVIEW: Ep. 5.6 "316"

“Is he telling the truth?”

“Probably not”

I loved every minute of this episode. From the very beginning with the iconic “eye close-up” on Jack waking up again on the island – I was absolutely hooked. The pacing was so much better – slower – more character driven. The reveals were so much more significant. It ranks right up there in my top five favorite episodes. Awesome.

So, thank you Nate for pointing out the Desmond quote that “these people are playing a game and we are just the pieces.” But the most significant reveals in this episode to me were Ms. Hawking’s history lesson about how Dharma found the island – “this is how they found the island.” Who exactly are the “they” she is referring to? I have some wacky ideas.

“A very clever fellow” built the pendulum on the theoretical notion that they should stop looking for where the island was supposed to be, and start looking for where it was going to be. This man and his team figured out where the island would be at a certain point in time.

I can’t help thinking that Daniel Faraday is/was/will be that very clever fellow, and that Jack Shepherd and his friends from Oceanic 815 are his team. If I am right, this all happened in a past that these guys haven’t quite arrived at that point in their own history yet. But it has already happened, so Ms. Hawking can confidently tell Desmond that the island is not through with him, because she knows that he has already played this important role in the past, just as she knew that he would go to the island and push the button.

It also explains her answer about what would happen if they all didn’t get back to the island – it would be unpredictable – which means, of course, that since they all DID get back to the island (it already happened) and their actions put into motion events that have already occurred, if that were somehow changed, you couldn’t predict with any certainty what would happen next.

Which – I think – is exactly what Ben is trying to accomplish in his quest to maintain control of the island and harness the power it gives him.

If Faraday and Jack and Co. are the historical founders of Dharma, the builders of the lamppost station, and the finders of the island, then Ben would have learned this in his history lessons on the island. He would have had knowledge of what had already happened, even though the players themselves had not advanced that far yet in the game.

One theory that I have scoffed at for the past two seasons is the suggestion that Jacob is John Locke. I haven’t completely embraced this idea yet (especially since Richard didn’t recognize Locke at one point when he said that Jacob sent him), but now I am seeing how this could possibly be the case, and if it is, I wouldn’t really hate it.

Imagine that Locke goes through everything he is going through – that in a return to the island as “proxy” he is reincarnated somehow -- but at an earlier stage in the island’s history – it is possible that he could become the “Jacob” who is the protector of the island. It is also possible that he is somehow imprisoned – or whatever the current state of Jacob is – by a greedy power-hungry guy like Charles Widmore, who then loses the island to greedier power-hungrier Benjamin Linus, who recognizes the young Jacob in John Locke, and tries to insert himself into Locke’s historical path to greatness so that he (Ben) will become the historic “Jacob” instead of Locke (example: Ben “moves the island” instead of Locke doing it because he thinks that will put himself on the path that makes Locke become Jacob).

It’s late. I’m rambling. And it’s late.

At one point in this past episode I started thinking along these “usurping” lines and I told Tracey that when Jack opened up the coffin to put in the shoes, he would find Ben inside instead of Locke – Ben, of course, trying to take Locke’s place. But, um… I was wrong.

It doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying.

Remember in this season’s premier, we saw Faraday in Dharma attire doing something sneaky around the soon-to-be orchid station. Well, I’m expecting a twist in this season’s finale. Faraday and some of the Losties (Jack and Co.) will hatch some plan to harness the energy to get them back to where they need to be, but will once again get booted off the island. Somehow Ben will be behind this to get them out of the picture. They will be sent back to the outside world, but this time they will be in the past – the 1950s – and they once again will have to find a way back to the island. That’s when they will build the lamppost, and will start Dharma, and will put all these things in to motion, and do it with a clearer picture of what will happen in the future, because they have already seen it and experienced it, and they will create a game of mousetrap to outsmart Ben linus with their 20-20 hindsight.

Let me walk you through another crazy mousetrap scenario I can imagine:

In order for Locke to finally triumph over Ben, he has to posses some knowledge that Ben does not know that he has – the glow-in-the-dark map of all Dharma stations he saw on the blast door. This knowledge will ultimately save the day. Somehow. Just work with me.

In order for Locke to see the map, Ben has to do whatever Ben did in the swan hatch to reset the system and cause the blackout and the map to start glowing (without knowing, of course, what he has done).

In order for Ben to get into the Swan hatch in the first place, he has to be captured unexpectedly by Rousseau in her net and delivered to Sayid and the Losties.

In order for Rousseau to build her net traps, she and her team must be lead to the island.

In order for Rousseau’s team to find the island, someone (my money is on Hurley) must transmit the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42 from the radio tower. (I really like the idea that Hurley is the ultimate source of his own numbers paranoia).

In order for Locke to be able to see the map and the information it contains after all of this has happened, some named Radzinski (Faraday? Locke himself?) must paint it invisibly onto the blast door.

This may be way off, but with the new time twists in Lost, we can see all of these potentially mind-blowing possibilities of the older Losties preparing the island for the arrival of their younger selves. Who knows – maybe they somehow arrange the food drops in advance because they know they will need them in the future? There are so many ways this can be used.

Of course this episode also has many other minor mysteries to be solved in the next few episodes:

What happened with Aaron?
How did Ben get all bloodied?
Who is the woman with Sayid, and the Middle Eastern man in the seas with them?
Where (when?) are the other people on the plane (did it crash, or did the island just reclaim the people that weren’t supposed to leave it?)
Why did Frank Lapidus shave his cool Kenny Rogers beard?

So many questions. So many possible answers. So glad that Lost got itself back on track after Locke fixed that annoying skipping donkey wheel.

Yes!!!! It’s back.